Welcome to the boys’ club, AKA planet Earth

“Team Netflix. (The one woman in management is, as usual, head of human resources).” Courtesy of Boys Clubs

There I was at The Grill, trying to make myself invisible on a patio filled with local journalists.

I was feeling characteristically unsocial at this particular gathering of local media so-and-sos, and all the free drink tickets in the room couldn’t get me in the mood to schmooze. Just as I was making a move for the exit, I was cornered by a suit from another local media outlet.

We pride ourselves on being Southeast Texas’ No. 1 source of only the most adorable booze news.

There’s an inescapable fact here that is not lost on me: If the editor of cat5 happened to be a 6’2” dude (who would, let’s face it, probably have a really awesome facial hair situation), no one would be approaching him at parties to tell him how cute his little magazine is.

cat5 is run, by and large, by women, and I’m proud of that. Grace, Christina, Larena and I worked together to build this bad boy from scratch, with a lot of help from Beaumont Enterprise design and photo teams. Sure, our work is sometimes adorable. Anything can be cute if you put a tiny top hat on it.

But calling something “cute” and “little” is a small, quiet way of belittling our contribution to our community, and it happens to women in every career field every day. If you think the glass ceiling is another long-dead ’90s catch phrase, you need to bone up on your NPR-listening, son. According to the National Committee on Pay Equity, women still make .77 cents for every dollar men make. That ain’t cute.

In a recent story in Talking Writing, a writers’ magazine, Lorraine Berry interviewed female heavy-hitters in American literature about the kinds of questions they get asked in interviews.

“I have been asked how I lost weight,” author Jodi Picoult said. “Multiple times.”

Writer Jennifer Weiner had to bail on a New York Times Magazine interview because the reporter kept asking to see her shoe collection — and asking Weiner if she felt bad for “abandoning” her family to go on a book tour.

Nobody asks male CEOs if they feel bad for “abandoning” their family — and if they do, it’s certainly not phrased like that.

Look, I recognize that things for women are changing and have been changing for a long time. The collective subconscious isn’t going to fix itself overnight. But how can things change when so much of the business landscape is still a total sausage fest?

The blog Boys Clubs (100percentmen.tumblr.com) calls out major corporations who seem a little, uh, behind the times. From Netflix (run by four middle-age white dudes) to T-Mobile (run by 11 middle-age white dudes) to Phillip Morris (run by — you guessed it — four middle-age white dudes), it’s not hard to see that diversity isn’t taken seriously by everyone in the American market place.

I’m not asking for “token” lady spots on your board, biz dudes. This is 2013 — you don’t have to have a token chick position, because there are plenty of well educated women with experience who are more than capable of taking a seat at the table.